State Budget: Trigger Cuts Hit Community Colleges

Now that California's dreaded "trigger cuts" have been triggered, public colleges and universities - and students and teachers - are the clear losers in the midyear budget bloodbath.

California State University and the University of California will each lose $100 million, bringing to $750 million in cuts this year from each university's budget.

But the deepest impact will be at community colleges, where the cuts will cost $102 million, for a total loss this year of $502 million from the system's $5.9 billion budget.

"Colleges are at a breaking point now," said Chancellor Jack Scott of the community college system, predicting more crowded classrooms and layoffs of adjunct faculty, who teach on semester-to-semester contracts.